Wellmirth Metal Insitution
by superstarAlpha
Summary: Miranda and Steven Jennis are patients at Wellmirth Metal Insitution, but after they find a way to escape, they discover the only ones waiting for them are Division agents. Mostly O.C.s
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I tried doing things slightly differently than I normally do, and I think the style that I opened this with is unique. Did it work or is it an Epic fail? Do you love the story? Do you hate it? Review please and help me to be a better writer. Always remember - "what goes around comes around"**

**~Alpha  
**

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Wellmirth Metal Institution has stood in the same concrete plot on Shaver Drive since before the second world war. It has admitted many patients from the raving mad to the casually almost functional mentally handicapped. The building itself is plain, masking it's turbulent insides. White wash walls entrap the institution's inhabitants and give few windows to offer solace. There are no flowers in front, just often full parking spaces. This is not because there are many visitors, quite to the contrary as many of the patients don't have family that will claim them, but because there are so many people who work there, doctors, nurses and security, that the maroon or lilac scrubs, black uniforms or light blue doctors' coats nearly outnumber the patients.

There are three main categories for the people inside – medicated, temporary, or helpless.

There are some, such as Harold Smith, who are medicated. They take pills every day, often a dozen or so, that keep whatever disease that plagues them largely at bay. Harold, a sixty-three year old Korean Veteran has a sever case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and since has seen ghosts of the people he was stationed with. Mr. Smith has been determined to be almost fully capable of being taken care of himself on his own. Almost. The ghosts he sees try to convince him to do strange things, such as leaving all the doors and windows open before leaving the house, never draining sinks or bath tubs, often recluse for days at a time to the dark and slightly damp crawlspace under the bedroom or inviting random strangers to come back to base with him. Doctors have suggested, for his health, that he be admitted into Wellmirth for fear of him creating a stink-hole of rotten food, dirty water, improper air conditions and possibly the threat of having the police called by some strange person who didn't understand Mr. Smith's condition.

Other people are temporary. These people often have made some mistake in their life, equating them to "mentally unhealthy" such as Debra Goldbloom. Ms. Goldbloom was admitted when she was twelve and is currently sixteen. The courts say that one night she woke up, walked to the bedroom of her parents and took the hand-gun from the bedside drawer, shooting them both seven times. After that, again, according to police, she left the room and found her elder brother with a baseball bat, unaware of what exactly had happened, and she shot him as well, three times. She claimed not to have known what was going on, but felt like she was in a trace-like state. The dreams told her to do so. It was fairly convincing, and she had a decent attorney, though no one knew quiet how. She pleaded insanity and the judge gave her five years in Wellmirth.

Then there are the helpless. Generally, the staff don't call them that around them, but the helpless are the people that no medication invented, no psychotherapy treatment discovered, could ever cure. These types of patients only began arriving in the 1950's. They include, among others, brother and sister Miranda and Steven Jennis. They were admitted together on the premises that they always spoke either together, or completed each other's sentences. When one was sick, the other was. Miranda always drew pictures on Steven's back, often six or seven in a single sitting. Steven could move things, like telekinesis. They both arrived at eight, when their well-bred mother and father both decided it was too harmful to their reputations to have them when they had another two perfect children. The first things the doctors did with the two was try to drug up Miranda, in order to end the hallucinations, and run lab-mouse tests on Steven. They couldn't handle being apart, and Steven, in effect, through so many chairs and tables and computers that he broke down two walls until he arrived in the same room as his sister, where she was squirming in the guards hands, kicking, biting and screaming nonsense about the place being a death trap. They are helpless because of the simple fact that every time a staff member tries to give them medication, either the staff receives it instead, or they manage to destroy half the building in an attempt to avoid the sedatives.

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**A/N: So, my main reason in posting this is to see if anyone would be willing to beta-read this story for me. I you would like to, send me a pm, not really a "review". Anyways, please and thank you. If you're not up to it, that's fine. Enjoy this and please be patient while I get the rest finished.**

**Please Review**

**I don't mean any harm if these character are similar to any other form of fiction, or real life.**

** Also, updates will be slow, as I'm trying to get another fic up.  
**

**~Alpha  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Before they were branded as hopeless, the doctors had tried everything. Over the years, the drugs they had succeed in using, albeit few, for Miranda's hallucinations only made her worse and worse. In her spare time, she was usually dazed, often muttering to herself with Steven holding her hand. Several times, she made requests, always in verse, for certain art tools. She asked many times, again and again, but the answer was always no, since the toxins were, in general, forbidden from the place. After months and months of requests and protests, Steven got sick of see her repression. He had thrown the recreation room, and most of the rest of the building – that being the reach of his powers – into utter disarray.

She got her paints, whenever she wanted them, in whatever colors she pleased. Though her behaviors was getting less typical, the doctors said her hallucination were less and less, seeing as only once or twice a month she would use the paints to draw on herself, other receptacles, or, more often, Steven. The pictures were often very graphic and very colorful. From time to time, the doctors would see these, and occasionally in the years of their occupancy, the pictures wold depict another inmate – for it was a prison to most – in their death. Miranda had never been wrong.

Of course, they had tried to split the two up as they grew, numerous times. But Steven and Miranda always refused. The security's attempts would have been very successful if he hadn't thrown a bigger tantrum than her. He had an overwhelming sense of protection over his sister and was often the only person that she would talk to. He refused to leave her side unless she was asleep, and then, that was the only time the doctors could pull him away for testing. They would apply pads to his temples, hands and inner elbows, giving him commands to move something. He always complied, but the fancy computers that he never really cared for showed no difference as opposed to when he wasn't doing anything. At one time, he had thought it amusing to make the machines go crazy, but after a scolding and several threats about pulling the twins apart, he had ceased.

It was one night, after his usual doctor – Dr. Hamel - had stepped out of the room that Steven could sense something was different. Dr. Hamel had left and through the window Steven could see he was talking to another man who he had never seen before. He was taller, perhaps a good ten or so years older than himself, Steven being about sixteen. He wore a sharp business suit and the look in his eyes seemed to be sharp as a tack and concentrated only on the task at hand. He motioned to the teenager several times, talking about the lab-rat instead of to him. Steven hated that. They always just treated him like test subjects, everyone. It's as if the two couldn't comprehend normal speak.

Steven turned away from the window and folded his arms on the table, resting his head on them. With a sigh, he figured he should be used to it, since it had been happening for years, but something screamed at him that they didn't do this to the doctors, so _he_ must be different. But he was as sane as any of these experts, and from all the books that they were allowed to have, he sometimes considered himself better on certain topics then them. Sure, he had powers, but how could that single fact strip away his humanity?

After a few minutes, in which time Steven had managed to pull away all the pads and replace them in different spots, Dr. Hamel came back in. He was an older man, with brittle bones, but easily excitable features. When he thought something interesting was happening, his hands would shake and his eyes would go wide. He was such a bad shaker, he'd call in a nurse to write down everything. Regardless, he rarely took anything as bad news, always as an opportunity, and had on more than one occasion told Steven that Miranda held him back.

"Hi." The doctor said, as if this was their first meeting.

"Hi" Steven said, lifting his head up, then letting it droop back down, simply out of boredom.

"Now, look. You see that man out there? He's very interested in you." He said, pointing to the window. The doctor's eyes were wide, though not as much as the day when Steven made the computer go bizarre.

"Yeah. So are you." He didn't really care. Steven never cared about much, unless it was pertaining to his sister. He had put aside most all emotions and looked at most things the way a tempered adult would.

"Right, well, I have good reason to be. So does he. He wants to study you two as well. Both you and your sister. He says that if you go with him, you'll never have to be apart."

Steven raised his eyebrow a fraction of an inch. "So?" By which he meant there must have been some sort of catch.

"So, doesn't that sound interesting?" Clearly, the doctor hadn't gotten the right idea.

"Sure, but what's the catch?" After trying for year to decipher Miranda's meaning (which, more often than not was pretty blatant, but so much so that he thought he had to look for it), it sometimes irritated his to have to explain down to the nuts and bolts of what he meant.

"Well, see, he's a scientist. Like I am. I'm going to be honest with you, he wants to try some new medicines. He says they're likely to help." Steven couldn't tell if the doctor was excited more for the discoveries this might make or for getting rid of the two, easily being the most high-maintenance of all the helpless.

"New medicines? Because that's what we need. More things that will damage us." By us and we, he meant her. He always meant her, but he stopped saying it around the doctors, since they always tried to convince him that he was a single element, as was she. "I'll have to see what she thinks."

"Don't you see, boy? She doesn't think anything. That silly mumbo jumbo she says, it doesn't mean anything. Open your eyes. She's beyond any help we can give her. This will be right for the two of you." Dr. Hamel stood up, now waving his arms around passionately. What he didn't understand was that it was only mumbo jumbo to people that didn't know her. With Steven, didn't speak in riddles – just haikus, he discovered.

"We'll see." Steven stood as well, beginning to pull off the pads again.

"Hey! Hey! That goes in a certain order, you can't just - " Steven had removed them all before the doctor could finish, giving a little chuckle to himself before walking to the door, unlocking it with his powers and walking out, in long, purposeful strides.

'You want to come with' something told him. It wasn't an audio sound, but more of a feeling, and instinct. He turned back to see the man watching him intently. The tall man smiled, but Steven turned around and continued walking to the room they kept Miranda in.

The people that tended to her often left the door unlocked, because it was just easier to let him come and go as he pleased, they'd found out the hard way. He walked in and sat by her bed. She was laying on her stomach, a pillow clutched tightly underneath her and her breathing was light, as usual.

He sat in the chair by her bed and looked, not for the first or second, but for the millionth time at the walls of her tiny little cell. Each wall had a different mural, and the paintings, while not of Van Gogh quality, were easily recognizable. One wall in particular was devoted to two people. They looked like the pair, through clearly were not. The black hair was exactly the same, the subtle shapes of the eyes and nose of the man were exactly identifiable in the twins, as well as the eye color and chin of the woman.

"Commonly referred to as mother and father, these people birthed us." She had explained the first time she painted it.

"And what does the picture show besides them?" He had asked, since no background had been established yet.

"I haven't finished. Silly boy, you'll have to wait. I will finish this." She had said, not peeling her eyes from an upper portion in a corner she was working on. She was standing on a chair, her long hair flowing down to her ankles and around her face, some strands finding there way into the half wet paint. It gave the people the same quality as some of her other paints, that whispy look because her hair always got caught in the paint.

"Come down from there. Let me at least help you get those strands of hair out of your face. They're messing up your art." Maybe he had asked a thousand times, maybe he just thought it, but either way, she had known it for a while that the length and flow of her hair bugged him.

"Oh, I assure you, my hair is trivial to me. Concern yourself not." She had said to the wall, dabbing more red in her area. When she had come up from her concrete canvas she looked at the wall in scrutiny for a moment before dropping off the chair and collecting another color.

Steven gave a slight sigh before arranging himself on her bed and propping open the book he had under his arm. The collection was hardly new, but at least this place had a small bit of good books.

Even now, he still hasn't learned all there is to the painting she had started then. A week after she started, she put down the brushes, just staring at the wall. It gave him a chance to take her hair back. There were no scissors to cut it with, and he doubted it was a matter that needed such theatrics as the paints. While she sat and stared at it he brushed through her hair, pulling it back into a pony tail. One of the nurses, he deduced, would have to show him how to braid it. It would get dirtier slower that way.

Since then, she had always kept her hair braided. If she had cared one way or the other, he knew she would prefer it, but she never been one for pointless measures.

"What do you think?" He asked the semi-conscious girl. The only reason he thought she was semi-conscious was because she often responded, either just then or a little while after waking. "Does it seem like a good idea to leave here? I got a strange feeling from that man, and I can't say I like the idea." He didn't mention the idea of possibly helping her, mostly because she never thought there was anything wrong with her. He also didn't think that drugs would lead her to recovery, so what was the point in mentioning that? He placed a hand on her back before continuing. "I'm curious as to what you see if we go. But I know, in order for you to see that, we have to have made the decision to do so. I guess it couldn't hurt, right?"

She gave a little twitch before he let go of her. With another sigh, not out of remorse, or worse, regret, but exhaustion, he stood up and decided it was time for him to sleep. He still hadn't managed to convince them to put two beds in here, regardless of the lack of space, so he went back to his own room, knowing she'd sleep even later than he would anyways.

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

When Miranda awoke that morning she went through her normal routine; precisely – within a fraction of a millimeter, precisely – replacing the bed sheets as they were the day before, washing her hands, scrubbing the palm five times, the back four, and under each nail three. After splashing her face with water four times, she left her room and went down the hall to the recreation area.

Steven was there, sitting a a hard linoleum round table, eating a bowl of what was supposed to be oatmeal. She went and sat with him, grabbing the extra spoon Steven was acoustumed to getting. She also took a napkin, which she adjusted carefully onto her patient's robe before pulling the tray over to herself and spooning at the fluid concoction roughly the color of sand, or the sand she knew of being a paint color.

Steven, on the other hand, saved his pleasantries and drank from the small cup of orange juice he had. Turning to the side his sister had not sat on, he spoke to the man sitting next to him. The man was older, some ten or so years and had brown hair long enough to be pulled into a ponytail, as well as a bread long enough to be braided. He shook the paper he had in his hands, dated for almost a week earlier, but it wasn't as though he knew.

"Are the current events anything interesting, Jericho?" Steven asks, absentmindedly sipping another bit from his drink.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. Maybe you'd know. What are embryonic stem cells?" The man asks, curiously pulling one corner in so Steven could see his face better. No one liked seeing his face, as it had terrible burns covering a good three quarters of it. According to him, he had been in a fire, yet managed to escape without much difficulty. Then he heard the screaming of his little sister, and rushed back into the fire. When he got to her, most of her clothes were engulfed in flames, as well as her hair and skin. The image itself was burned inside his mind, and in his eyes. He had tried to rush over to help her, knowing he could mend people's injuries, and got burned himself. Before he could do anything, a fire fighter had pulled him off the crisping corpse. Ranting and raving about how it was his fault, they had brought him here.

"Basically speaking, they're cells that are taken from an unfertilized egg, then grown in a laboratory. In essence, they can grow to become any type of tissue, then used to help the sick that need things such as, kidney transplants, or things of that nature." He said, sitting up and attempting to look at the paper.

"I see. Do you suppose they could be used for skin tissue?" There was a gleam of hope in his eyes. It wouldn't be worth it to explain that it might take decades before the research could actually be completed even _if _it got the funding.

"Maybe. Why?" At this Jericho had released the paper completely to Steven's light grasp.

"Well, the president is increasing funding for that. Look, it says here they may be able to make brain tissue." He pointed to the spot he had just finished.

"That could be very... advantageous to those who... are mentally ill." Miranda commented, still sipping at a spoonful of the dripping liquid. Steven thought about this for a minute. It really had potential, but was it right to think maybe one surgery, one more experiment or test could solve what millions of tests had done wrong?

Almost in response to his thoughts, Miranda dropped her spoon with a soft clank. Looking over, Steven saw her eyes go hazy, looking at something far beyond the slimy porridge. He shoulders shook and her breathing got heavy while she tried to rock.

Though he watched her intently, he knew not to touch.

"Help! Help! We've got a seizure!" One of the nurses yelled. She and several other attendants ran to the table, but Steven stood up to block their paths.

"Move, boy." A doctor said, putting the stethoscope in his ears.

"She's fine. Trust me." He murmured, watching her.

"They fall very soon. It won't be long now, oh no. Very soon, it starts. They will fall, and so, " Miranda choked "it won't be long now, oh no. Screaming eagles fly. Take down two concrete giants. A land of nothing." Her rocking abruptly stopped and she stood erect, except for her head which had dropped before her. She opened her eyes and tilted her head up. She inhaled quickly, then exhaled as she stood up and flashed back out the doors of the room and down the hall.

"Miranda!" Steven called, commencing a run to more than match hers.

He stopped when she did, back in her room. She began pouring colors onto her pallet tray before jumping up on a chair before the painting of their parents. She began in the top right corner, using a smokey ash to fill in clouds, then using a lighter gray, nearly silver, to make to long spires coming down from the dark clouds. Using the same color, she painted in a metallic eagle against a blue sky.

She jumped down from the chair and used the faucet to wipe of the colors, putting new ones on and kicking the chair out of the way to paint something else. To the right of the previously made figures, she made another man. Tall, and a little older, some decade or so, in a sharp business suit. He was staring at the smoke and was smiling with teeth as white as the devil's.

After the short time it took Miranda to paint, all with Steven staring over her shoulder, she stepped back and stood up in the same fluid motion. Slower this time, she went back to the sink and washed off the pallet, setting it to dry on the side of the porcelain sink.

Steven put his hand to his scratchy chin, rubbing it while he studied the picture. "Sister," He said at last. "Do you know what this is?" He pointed to the silver bird headed for the smoke.

She shrugged. "You assume too much. I don't know how metal flies. It's a metal bird." She said, humming softly and she recapped the paints she had used.

"An airplane." He whispered to himself.

"Do you believe so? What is an Are-o-plane? And who is that man?" She put them all back into a box she had, careful to put them caps up, where she had already colored each one with the dye they hold inside. All forty five of them where arranged by color from brightest and whitest to the darkest, ending in pitch black.

"Airplanes are like metal birds, but I've read people can go inside them, because they are expansive. They fly, but they don't have to flap their wings. It's a jet engine." He moved closer to study the picture. It was only when he was a few inches away, and about eight inches below it that he noticed something in the smoke. There was a face there, evil and looking out at the room with sin and death in his eyes.

"Such new sciences. How fabulous is it, brother, to have them?" She also washed off her hands before climbing onto her bed and curling into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest, with her eyes pouring over at him.

"Yes, it is. Miranda, I've seen this man. He made me an offer-" Steven began.

"Right, we are to go. But he sure is dangerous. We can't possibly." She shook her head, making a few loose strands of hair weave to catch up.

"So, what then?" he asked, sitting beside her on the hard mattress.

"Didn't you hear me? We're supposed to go with him. And find the parents." She pointed to the man and the woman. She had never said they were her parents, or Steven's, and that was probably because she never knew what they were, and what their duties were.

"Runaway." Steven muttered again, to himself.

"Precisely, brother. It really is quite simple. Don't over-think this." She giggled. She always said he thought too much. That he should relax, like her.

"Where do we find them?" Steven was certain that if she'd seen a location, it would have been on the wall too, but there was nothing there, so he was mostly asking himself.

"Not here. I don't know. Steven, don't over look me. I see a lot of things. But I've never seen" She took a deep breath "The world that my visions show. I really want to." She still stared at him, but her voice was distant. It was her wishing voice.

Steven smiled, knowing he could make this wish true. "Sure thing."

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**A/N: Like this? Good, first off. Please be patient with me, I have a few stories in progess, I have College, and my beta reader bailed, but I'm working on writing more. If you can't be patient, try this story by a very trusted author, Mute Madien (/s/5274511/1/), and if that still doesn't help you get your fix, join (note: no spaces here) .com . It's very cool.**

**Don't forget to comment!**

**~Alpha**


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